As various portable terminals become widely used and wireless internet service is commercialized, consumer demand for portable terminals are also diversified. In order to satisfy such demand, various kinds of additional devices are mounted on portable terminals.
Among the additional devices, the representative device for taking an image or video of an object, storing the image data and editing and transmitting the data at a desired time is a camera module.
In recent years, demand for a compact camera module for use in various multimedia fields, including those of personal computers, camera phones, PDAs, smart phones, toys and the like and for use in image input devices of information terminals, monitoring cameras and video tape recorders has increased.
It is difficult to adopt voice coil motor (VCM) technology, which is typically used in conventional camera modules, for use in an ultracompact camera module, which aims at achieving low power consumption, and thus research into the technology has been actively undertaken.
A camera module mounted in a small-sized electronic product, such as a smart phone, may be frequently subjected to shocks during use. In addition, the camera module may minutely shake due to the trembling of the user's hand while taking a photograph. Therefore, there is a high necessity for a technology capable of incorporating a handshake correction unit into the camera module.
Various handshake correction technologies have been recently researched. Among such handshake correction technologies, there is a technology of correcting handshake by moving an optical module in the x-axis and y-axis directions, which define a plane perpendicular to the optical axis. Since the technology is configured such that the optical system is moved and adjusted in the plane perpendicular to the optical axis for image correction, it is complicated and is unsuitable for miniaturization.
Furthermore, there is a demand for accurate and rapid focusing in the optical module.